I feel the same. Even if the lives of those I know aren’t perfect and even if they have struggles behind closed doors, it doesn’t make me feel less envious of them, because they still are better and more than I will ever be. My best friend (whom I am not sure I am friends with anymore), to use an example, is smarter, prettier, richer, better in school, has more friends, all around better than I am regardless of what issues she has to deal with. Sure, she has issues “behind the scenes,” but that doesn’t make me less envious because I have so many freaking problems that it is impossible for them to be “behind the scenes,” as demonstrated by the fact that I am so scarred from self-harm people stare at me in public.

Here I am barely surviving financially, talking to a wall, and dealing with child abuse issues in therapy, while she is having “the best time of her life” attending university her wealthy parents are funding, traveling the world, and doing all the things I wish I can do and experience.

Issues or not she is better than I am.

As for more public figures, I can compared myself to them, because I wish I could be as successful and respected as them. I’ll never be as talented as Vishy Anand is at chess - he’s the world chess champion and he won the $2.5 million chess game in Moscow this year. Why wouldn’t I feel envious of that? What the hell have I accomplished in life? Certainly nothing like he has.